Richmond County schools could get lacrosse

Lacrosse could be coming to at least one Richmond County school in the next few years.

The idea of creating a team was recently posed to school board members by The First Stick Program, a group that helps provide grants to foster lacrosse teams in inner-city, low-income areas that might not have exposure to the sport.

"We're hoping to mirror the First Tee program," a local group that promotes golf, said Paul Meyer, who represented First Stick before the board.

Meyer told the board his group is offering an $8,000 equipment grant to the school system to create a men's lacrosse team and would assist with fundraising and donation drives. A coach would be supplied, he said, and a $2,000 equipment grant would be available for the creation of a women's team.

County Athletic Director George Bailey, who has been instructed by the board to work with First Stick and come back with a recommendation, said this week that the idea is progressing.

He said all high schools will be surveyed to gauge interest in a lacrosse team.

"Secondly, we will look at the numbers of boys and girls, and once we have determined the schools, we will look at the funding and what it may cost the board," Bailey said in an e-mail. "We will then offer the report to the board for their discussion and possible decision."

Bailey said officials will have about two years to work on the idea, with a goal of establishing one or more teams by 2014.

Meyer told the board that Greenbrier and Lakeside high schools and Augusta State University already have lacrosse teams.

"It's not as though we're starting from scratch," he said.

He said a Richmond County team would play mostly Georgia teams but could venture into South Carolina. He said there are about 60 high school lacrosse teams in Georgia, and the season runs from January to spring.

Meyer was asked whether it would be up to the school to continue funding the team after a first year of funding by First Stick. He said that at some point the team should fund itself through donations, gate returns from games and fundraising, but he said his group "wouldn't walk away" and would continue helping.

"It's a great opportunity for a school given economic and budget restraints," he said.

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Lacrosse. Sheeeeeeesh! Please, not another unnecessary interruption to academic endeavors. Sports, sports, sports; only the Neanderthals could get fired up over another knuckle dragging activity.

However, let 'er rip! $8,000 for the boys and $2,000 for the girls should be an appropriate degree of discrimination between the support for boys and girls to trigger a Title IX dispute. Don't you just love athletics?

I would like to first take this opportunity to explain to you several mistakes you have made in ignorance that may mislead readers.

You suggest that athletes perform at a lesser level in the classroom. There has been intense research on the correlation between lacrosse and academia and it is positive. Not only is it possitive correlation it suggests that lacrosse players perform no less than average in the classroom.

To the proposed title IX lawsuit, that is outrageous and a straight up lie. Title IX is a proposition seeing to it that all school disperse programs and funds appropriately based on gender : gender percent as well as cost of sport. For instance, the basic price for a male lacrosse player is in the $200 to $300 range plus travel expenses and coaching fee, add up 25 players your looking at the $6000 mark. Women's lacrosse on the other hand is much cheaper, costing an average of $55 put athlete, and calculate there may be interest around 25 and the price is about $1400. If math suits me well then that is honestly about the same percent difference, therefore no Title IX involvement. So before you or anybody else decide to post for everybody to see, I challenge yourself to do research so that you do not look ignorant for everybody to see.